Landslides kill two women in Dima Hasao

Nagaon, June 26: Two women died and five others were seriously injured after a landslide damaged their huts in Mahadevtila under Haflong police station in Assam’s Dima Hasao district this morning.

Houses of the families living in the foothills of Mahadevtila near Haflong town were completely damaged in the landslides caused by four days of torrential rain. The mudslip has paralysed road communication in the hill district headquarters neighbouring Silchar. Rail communication has also been suspended since yesterday, in Dima Hasao district because of the landslides.

A high-level team of local autonomous council led by chief executive member Debojeet Thaosen rushed to the site and launched the daylong rescue operations.

“We were informed about the incident around 6am. When we reached the site, we could see only mounds of earth. It took the rescue team almost two hours to dig through the debris and extricate the bodies of the two women. Rescue operations are on and more bodies were expected to be found, as nobody could tell how many persons were trapped inside the huts,” Dima Hasao additional superintendent of police, Surajit Singh Panesar, said from the site.

“The calamity is because of the continuous rainfall, which started here on Thursday. As people of these areas are not accustomed to landslides, they had not taken any precautionary measures,” Thaosen told The Telegraph over phone.

Five persons, including three labourers were rescued from the site in a critical condition. They were admitted to Haflong civil hospital.